OCR

A Diplomatic Crusade 283
silences the throng. It begins again-a low bub-
bling noise that is alive with anxious, suppressed
excitement, and that threatens to engulf the
decorous Chapel in the rise of its un-religious tide.
The nervous twisting about to survey the crowd,
the buzz of talk, the ripple of laughter, cease sud-
denly. Then as the President and the College
Preacher, in their academic robes, enter the two
upper doors and ascend the platform, the mass
-rises, and led by the choir breaks into a vigorous
processional hymn. Then very quiet is the room
while the words of the strong King David are read,
and it is only when the last sentence of the prayer
brings the students upright that the excitement
breaks forth again.
Across the rustle of readjustment, subduing it
momentarily as a great wind flattens the waves for
an instant only to toss them the more wildly, comes
the voice of the President.
“Before we come to speak of the purpose for
which we are gathered here this morning,” she be-
gins, her smile expressing perfect appreciation of
the suspense that racks her audience, “ I should like
to make some announcements of general interest to
the students.” The strained attention of her hearers
all over the Chapel breaks in hardly audible catches
of the breath. Those unheard announcements give
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